org.eclipse.equinox.common problems when installing Expeditor Make sure you have the version of Eclipse that matches your Expeditor’s system requirements (not a newer version, not an older version). For Expeditor 6.2, you’ll need Eclipse 3.4.

Problem occurred reading your Target. Ensure that your Target Platform’s Location is configured correctly. Set it to c:\notes\framework\rcp\eclipse, or wherever your rcp\eclipse directory is. If you still get the error, tinker around a little or wait a while. I don’t remember what I did to solve this.

Bundle com.ibm.jxesupport not found. Ignore that. You’re supposed to be able to correct that issue by right-clicking on the project, selecting Properties > Client Services, and clicking OK, but no luck. It doesn’t stop the system from moving forward, though.

com.ibm.rcp.platform.personality error or java.lang.SecurityException: Unable to locate a login configuration: *Enable all the features and be patient.

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I’ve been working on getting a Lotus Notes + Eclipse development environment so that I can make a Lotus Notes plugin for my community tools. There’s a lot of interest in the community metrics tool, for starters.

The challenge with setting up development environments is getting all the versions to line up with the tutorials on the Net. I came across a page that described how to set up Lotus Notes 8.5.1 with the Eclipse Plugin Development Environment (PDE). I was on a newer version of Eclipse, so I needed to figure out a couple of the steps, and I eventually ran into a security exception with login configurations.

Along the way, I came across Lotus Expeditor and decided I wanted to try that. I saw an old article that said Expeditor only works with Eclipse 3.2.2 and not the newer versions, so I installed that, but it had problems trying to find com.ibm.equinox.common. Then I found out that I had a newer version of Expeditor which requires Eclipse 4.0. When I installed that, Expeditor installed fine.

Lesson learned: Look up the version of the toolkit you’re using. Look up the specific software requirements for that version. Match it instead of using newer versions.

Hmm. New error: Problem occurred reading your Target. Ensure that your Target Platform’s Location is configured correctly. I have it set to c:\notes\framework\rcp\eclipse. It won’t accept c:\notes\framework\eclipse . Hmm. It works now. I don’t know what I did, though.

I’m running into the com.ibm.rcp.platform.personality error again. Let’s try reloading those. They show up in the plugin list for the run configuration, though. Ah. Selecting another plugin that depends on that plugin might’ve done the trick.

There’s a note about Bundle com.ibm.jxesupport not found. com.ibm.jxesupport was removed in Lotus Expeditor 6.2.0. You’re supposed to be able to correct that issue by right-clicking on the project, selecting Properties > Client Services, and clicking OK, but no luck. It doesn’t stop the system from moving forward, though.

… and we’re back at the java.lang.SecurityException: Unable to locate a login configuration which I encountered this morning.

Okay. What do I know about this error?

Maybe I’ve configured the wrong JVM.

Maybe the JVM can’t find lib/security/java.security .

Maybe there isn’t one by default in Notes, so I have to create it.

Maybe the classes aren’t in the classpath.

Aha! Found someone with the same error message, but in a different language. The person reported that checking all the boxes in the plugin tab helped. Let’s try running it with all the features enabled (oh my). Lots of warnings, but still going… And there’s the Lotus Notes login dialog, and the sample QuickNote plugin. I think we have it!

We want to scale up Innovation Discovery and share the insights/workshop methods with more people, so one of my tasks is to remove sensitive information from our workshop output documents, post the scrubbed output documents in our community, and update the relevant sector page in our wiki.

This would be easier if people notified me after engagements, but at least we’ve gotten people into the habit of adding files to the Teamroom. I decided that instead of asking people to remember one more step in our post-engagement process, I would just regularly get into the habit of checking the Teamroom for updated documents. The Teamroom date view is useful, but there are other documents mixed into this, and I don’t think I can get my team members to adopt a consistent naming scheme or document type. However, if I wrote an agent to tell me which client categories didn’t have a final output document entry yet, I could use that to find new entries and follow up on old ones. So I did.

I didn’t have access to create new agents in the Teamroom database. I worked around this by creating this agent in my own database and then connecting to the other database from there.

Sub Initialize
'This script looks for all the client categories that do not have a final documents entry
'Display the current document's Categories field
Dim dbID As New NotesDatabase("","dbom1\global18.nsf")
Dim doc As NotesDocument
Dim catView As NotesView
Set catView = dbID.getView("CategoryLookup")
'Determine list of clients
Set doc = catView.Getfirstdocument()
Dim clients List As String
Dim finished List As String
Do Until(doc Is Nothing)
Dim category As String
category = doc.Getitemvalue("Categories")(0)
If (InStr(category, "Clients") <> 0) Then
'This belongs in the client category. Has it been found? Add it to the list
category = Mid(category, 9)
clients(category) = category
If (doc.GetItemValue("DocType")(0) = "Final output") Then
finished(category) = category
End If
End if
Set doc = catView.Getnextdocument(doc)
Loop
'Remove completed items
Dim s As String
s = ""
ForAll client In clients
If (Not IsElement(finished(client))) then
s = s + client + " "
End if
End ForAll
MessageBox(s)
End Sub

I change entries to the “Final output” document type after I’ve processed them. So far, so good!

It took me a few hours to figure out that I needed the SUMMARY field flag, so I thought I’d save you the struggle if you ever need to create a view with custom columns.

I was trying to create a view that showed the custom fields I’d added to an RSVP message: RSVPCampaign, RSVPCode, and other details. I had created a Lotus Notes button that sent me an e-mail with the information in hidden fields. I successfully processed the extra fields using a LotusScript agent. I wanted to create a view that showed the results so that I didn’t have to keep clicking on the button and checking my mail. Using a view would make it easier for me to share these tools with other people, because I figured out how to create a button that creates a view.

I couldn’t figure out how to get my custom fields to display, though. They showed up in @DocFields, but @IsAvailable(RSVPCampaign) was always false.

I read about all of the functions in the Formula language. I experimented with @GetField, field names, and other ways to access data. I dug through documentation and websites (most of which assumed people already knew things like this). Frustrated, I opened the properties dialog and started systematically going through the fields on my RSVP messages.

It took me several passes to notice that the regular fields had “Field Flags: SUMMARY” and my custom fields didn’t.

After some quick searching, I realized that I needed to set the summary field flag. So I rewrote my RSVP mailing function to include lines like this:

So if you’re stumped because your custom fields don’t work in view selection formulas or in column formulas, set the summary flag on the field when you set the field, and you should be good to go.

I wonder how I could’ve learned that faster. Reading other people’s source code would help. Forums are useful, too. Part of it involves picking up the jargon so that I know how to phrase my searches. Anyway, I fixed it! =D

Uses [ ] instead of < and > for built-in tokens ([to], [cc], [subject]) for less HTML confusion in blog posts and replies

Displays number of sent messages and errors

Closes the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet afterwards

The search-and-replace tokens are defined in the first row of your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The script searches for them in the message body, replaces them with the appropriate values from the current row, and either saves the message as the draft or sends the message. There are a few built-in tokens for this script ([to], [cc], [subject]) – these are case-sensitive, so enter them exactly like that. All the other tokens are up to you, so you could use FOO and BAR as search-and-replace tokens if you want.

Tokens are replaced only in the message body. If you want a variable subject line, use a formula to calculate the subject in a column with the [subject] header.

As always, test your mail merges with a small list before using it for your entire list. Create an agent and call it something like “Mail merge”. Edit the agent and set the type to LotusScript. In the (Declarations) section, add

Creativity loves constraints. I want to fit the core of my message into 5 minutes (approximately 750 words), with each “part” being 140 characters or less.

This will be a launching pad for discussion, which will take up most of the allotted time. I’ll switch to Q&A with a summary slide that includes Why and Beyond the Basics so that it’s easy for people to remember what they want to ask questions about. I’ll use five minutes at the end to wrap up, and I’ll post links and follow-up material in a blog post. I’ll collect e-mail addresses so that I can notify people when I’ve posted an update.

I plan to make hand-drawn slides for each of the sections, and maybe even animation if I get around to it. =)

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The Whys and Hows of Microblogging

Why use Twitter? Why update your status on Facebook or Lotus Connections? Let’s talk about why people microblog and how you can get more value out of these tools.

Don’t know whom to e-mail? Don’t have the time to write a blog post? Post a short, quick update that people can read if they’re there.

What can you fit in 140 or so characters? A single thought. A question. Maybe a link.

What can you get? Broad, rapid, almost real-time conversations, if you’ve got a good network.

Here’s what you can do to build that network, and why you’d want to.

Learning: Follow role models and learn from what they’re doing. Build the relationship by thanking them for tips and ideas.

Updates: Do your favourite stores post updates? Find out what’s on sale and when the cookies have come out of the oven.

Customer service: Good experience? Bad experience? Post an update and you might be surprised by who’s listening.

Events: Interested in an event? Find out who’s going and what people think. Going there in person? Meet up at tweetups and get to know more people.

Awareness: Miss those watercooler chats? Microblogging’s better. You can keep in touch with way more people, and you don’t even have to stand up.

Passing things along: Like what someone shared? Share the good stuff by re-posting with credit. Look at how people do it, and follow their example.

Sharing: Want to build your network? Make people happy and help them grow by sharing tips and answering questions.

Questions: Need a quick answer but don’t know whom to ask? Post your question and you just might get a tip. You’ll need a good network for this.

NOTE: No one expects you to read everything. Don’t get addicted. It’s okay if you miss people’s updates.

How to get started:

Twitter: Sign up on twitter.com. Look for people. Follow them. Reply when you have something to say. Share what you’re doing and learning.

Lotus Connections Profiles: Log in. Look for people. Invite them to your network. Reply when you have something to say. Share what you’re doing and learning.

There are more microblogging services out there. Explore. Find out what works for you.

Beyond the basics:

Apps: Use a microblogging client like Tweetdeck to make reading and posting easier. Explore and find out which tool fits you.

Cross-posting: Synchronize automatically, or use a tool to post on multiple services. MicroBlogCentral can handle Twitter and Lotus Connections Profiles.

Personas: Don’t want to mix work and life? Don’t want to overwhelm people with too many updates? Use multiple accounts to give people choices.

Group posting: Corporate brand? Team account? You can use tools to make it easy for many people to post to the same account.

Strategy: Where does microblogging fit into your strategy? Post quick updates and interact with people. Link to your main site in your profile.

Next steps:

Pick a reason why you want to microblog, and go for it. How can I help you make the most of these tools?

Keeping track of discussions in Lotus Connections Communities can be difficult, so I thought I’d use a feed reader to read new forum topics and replies. Instead of subscribing to each community by hand, I wrote a Ruby script that generated an OPML file, which I then imported into FeedDemon. Win!

sachac M-x customize-variable, or you can look for org-modules in my config at http://sachachua.com/dotemacs to see how I do it with (setq org-modules ...) and (org-load-modules-maybe... – Org-mode and habits